The Alberta government has tweaked the province’s unique charitable gaming model to allow charities to keep and use more money from gaming operations without the need for approval from Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC).

Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction Dale Nally said on Monday that the province has eliminated 60% of its rules around charitable gaming and how funds can be spent.

Starting from April 1, charities will be able to keep up to $50,000 in profits (up from the previous limit of $10,000) and newly use $100,000 of gaming proceeds to conduct community events, both without needing AGLC approval.

In addition, the limit for use of funds for facility renovations and leasehold improvements has been doubled to $100,000, the limit for administrative expenses has increased to 30% from 20% and approvals for all travel have been eliminated.

A government release said that the new changes “shift the focus of AGLC policy to the types of activities and programming a charity can use their gaming revenue for, rather than based on their organization type.

“Government needs to get out the way,” says Nally

Nally said at a news conference on Monday that “this will give organizations the resources and freedom they need to make a real difference.” He added that while he believes there needs to be some oversight of charitable gaming, the province is open to discussions on how they may further modify the rules in the future.

“We believe that government needs to get out of the way of charities,” he added.

Alberta is the only Canadian province that licenses charities to run casino events to help support their operations. There are six AGLC-licensed Host First Nations casinos operating in Alberta on reserve land, each of which partners with a dedicated charity.

One of those Host Casinos is River Cree Resort and Casino outside of Edmonton. River Cree’s CEO and General Manager Vik Mahajan told Canadian Gaming Business that the measure is intended to “ease up” on some of the rules around charities and give them more free rein on how to spend their financial proceeds from gaming. “Operationally, for us, it doesn’t change anything,” he said.

In 2024, more than 23,000 charities in the province participated in casino events. In 2023 and 2024, charity gaming events yielded more than $409 million for charities, $79 million of which was raised by the host First Nations charities.

“Alberta’s unique charitable gaming model supports over 23,000 charities in their work every year,” said AGLC CEO Kandice Machado. “The added flexibility in how charitable groups can use their earnings will help them continue to make a real difference for Albertans and communities throughout our province.”

Change comes as Alberta continues to explore iGaming

While these changes purely concern charitable gaming, it comes as Nally’s office continues to explore the best path forward to launching commercial online gaming.

One of the ministry’s first steps last year was to consult with First Nations communities starting last summer. Nally said at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas last fall that “we are going to treat First Nations as partners in prosperity.”

“They want to have a role in this iGaming market,” he added at the time. “They’re not sure what it looks like right now. Is it going to be a partnership with a current operator? Is it going to be a consortium of First Nations that come together to launch their own brand? I don’t know where they’re going to land. Time will tell.”

Shortly before those G2E comments, Nally’s office confirmed to CGB that they were pushing back the prospective timeline for launching an iGaming market to further consult with stakeholders. The hope is that the market will launch later this year, but multiple commercial gaming operators have pushed back their own projections to 2026.